Chapter 4: Cultivating the Humanitarian Mindset and Skillset in Engineers

Chapter 4

Cultivating the Humanitarian Mindset and Skillset in Engineers

Nick Brown, School of Engineering, RMIT University

Tanja Rosenqvist, School of Engineering, RMIT University

Abstract

Engineers are well placed to contribute to contemporary challenges in humanitarian action and development assistance contexts. This is due to a combination of their skillset, mindset, and ability to consider and deal with complexity. However, for engineers to work most effectively, safely, and ethically in humanitarian contexts requires principles, mindsets, tools, and techniques that are often missing, undervalued or under-represented in mainstream engineering education. Humanitarian engineering practitioners often address this gap by engaging in professional development as well as through humanitarian and development work. In Australia, Humanitarian Engineering Education has emerged to address this gap in university training. Experience in humanitarian engineering education at RMIT University has led to the development of several opportunities focussed on developing a humanitarian skillset and mindset that complements the students’ main engineering discipline knowledge. The RMIT approach to humanitarian engineering is built around a four-stage learning: 1) becoming conscious, 2) becoming concerned, 3) becoming competent and 4) becoming challenged. This learning journey is supported by circular opportunities that either teach humanitarian engineering concepts directly or use humanitarian engineering as a context to teach mainstream engineering. From this teaching practice several lessons have been learned, including the importance of transitional concepts such as appropriate technology, to challenge mainstream engineering mindset to consider socio-technical interactions.

Keywords: Humanitarian Engineering, Engineering Education, Engineering Profession, Humanitarian program Development, Competency Development The role of engineering in development assistance and humanitarian action

The role of engineering in development assistance and humanitarian action

The engineering mindset and skillset is well suited to contributing to increasingly complex and urgent contemporary global challenges, including poverty alleviation and social justice, as well as progressing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the UN General Assembly (2015). Engineering underpins many essential services such as the provision of shelter, energy, water and sanitation. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres affirmed, “every one of the [Sustainable Development] Goals requires solutions rooted in science, technology, and engineering” (Guterres, 2018). In addition to working on longer term development assistance, engineers are also well placed to contribute to shorter term humanitarian action (e.g. disaster response) under the humanitarian charter (Sphere Association, 2018). Advanced engineering problem solving is valuable as complex emergencies require complex responses and consideration for long term consequences (Davis & Lambert, 2002, p.1).

Engineers have been working in the areas of development assistance and humanitarian action for many decades, with practitioners often extending their mainstream engineering mindset and skillset through practical experience and acquiring multi-disciplinary knowledge. This is important; Eichhorn (2020) shows that mainstream engineering thinking does not always translate well into development contexts and may lead to further entrenching colonialist approaches. There is a growing interest in identifying and recognising the importance of this extended mindset and skillset and determining the best way they can be introduced to engineering students who are motivated by humanitarian and development work.

In Australia, the term Humanitarian Engineering is broadly understood to cover engineering actions from immediate disaster response, through recovery and stabilisation, to long-term community and infrastructure development, disaster preparedness, and capacity building (Greet, 2014; Turner et al., 2015). Whilst the term ‘humanitarian’ may have different definitions in other disciplines or countries and the engineering actions described may be called something else (e.g. ‘global engineering’ or ‘development engineering’), humanitarian engineering is recognised in Australia, as demonstrated through the launch of a national community of practice (HECoP, 2022), dedicated education programs (Smith et al., 2020) and a unique field of research (ABS, 2019).

Why humanitarian engineering is needed

As humanitarian engineering matures in Australia as a field of practice, research and teaching, there is still a question of whether humanitarian engineering is a specialism. After all, isn’t all engineering humanitarian in some way? In theory, it may be. Engineers Australia, the recognised professional body for engineers in Australia, begins its code of ethics with the paragraph: “[A]s engineering practitioners, we use our knowledge and skills for the benefit of the community to create engineering solutions for a sustainable future. In doing so, we strive to serve the community ahead of other personal or sectional interests” (EA, 2019). From an engineering education perspective, the Australian Council of Engineering Deans states: “Engineers aim to design products, systems infrastructure and services that produce a safer, healthier and more sustainable world and hence improve the quality of life of everyone” (ACED, 2017). If these statements played out across the engineering profession, there may be no need for a humanitarian engineering specialism. Unfortunately, whilst the engineering profession creates significant benefit, its actions also contribute to the complex and urgent contemporary global problems. The engineering and social justice movement demonstrates that there are “still huge discrepancies among groups and individuals who are served by and benefit from engineering and technological developments” (Baillie et al., 2012, p. viii). Further discussion and debate are beyond the scope of this chapter, but the position of the authors is that engineering is not by default humanitarian.

From an engineering perspective, humanitarian implies human centredness and ensuring that the socio-technical interaction is considered as part of the engineering process (Mazzurco & Daniel, 2020). Whilst the socio-technical interaction is sometimes considered in engineering projects, engineers can fall into the trap of “either imagining that they themselves can accurately and adequately represent their end users’ needs and wishes, or forgetting the end-user entirely” (Baillie et al., 2012, p.11). This is not a new phenomenon. About fifty years ago, Ernst Schumacher, a leader in engineering and technology for development, said “Who we design for defines the importance of the solution, not the frontier of the technology” (Schumacher, 1973). The complexity of humanitarian engineering and the importance of considering more than technical factors becomes more apparent if we consider an example, say, the provision of an essential service such as clean drinking water. Providing clean drinking water to low-income rural communities is not simply about identifying a feasible technical solution. Factors such as land tenure, marginalisation, power dynamics, political priorities, and environmental challenges, all need to be considered as well, each of which can change over time (Cunningham et al., 2019). Importantly, such factors can also intersect and compound to make the situation even more complex (Rhodes-Dicker et al., 2022). Developing and implementing a long-term sustainable solution for clean drinking water requires deep engagement with community members who may be disadvantaged, vulnerable, and/or marginalised as well as local government, private sector, and non-governmental stakeholders. The power imbalances involved can lead to complex risks and ethical considerations which humanitarian engineers need to be prepared for. Whilst ethics is typically covered as part of the competencies of a graduate engineer in Australia, the depth of their engagement with this topic may not be to the level required in complex humanitarian and development contexts. Furthermore, Eliot and Turns (2011) found that students often undervalue the non-technical side of engineering.

In summary, for engineers to work effectively, safely, and ethically in humanitarian contexts requires principles, mindsets, tools, and techniques that are often missing, undervalued, or under-represented in mainstream engineering education curriculum. Accordingly, there is a need for a field of engineering education that introduces these additional mindsets, skillsets and toolsets. In Australia this is Humanitarian Engineering Education, and several university initiatives are already available, including at RMIT University (Smith et al., 2020).

Humanitarian engineering education at RMIT University

RMIT University (RMIT) has a historic link to the humanitarian engineering movement in Australia. In 2003, Danny Almagor and fellow RMIT aerospace engineering graduates established the not-for-profit, member-based organisation Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB-A) with Almagor taking on the inaugural position of Social Entrepreneur in Residence at RMIT. The first EWB-A project was a collaboration with RMIT academics working on a wind turbine concept in Nepal (Bezar, 2006). Since then, RMIT has been involved in several EWB-A initiatives. These include the flagship education program ‘The EWB Challenge’, since its first edition in 2007 (Smith et al., 2018) and, more recently, the EWB-A Humanitarian Design Summit (Smith et al., 2016; Daniel & Brown, 2018).

In early 2018, RMIT took the step to strengthen its humanitarian engineering education capability by creating a dedicated academic position, followed by another one created in late 2019. Specialist humanitarian engineering courses were developed and delivered at Bachelor and Masters levels, focused on experiential learning. Together, these initiatives resulted in the structured humanitarian engineering offering available to students today. This program has been converted into a new Minor in Humanitarian Innovation, to be delivered through the School of Engineering, commencing by 2026.

Teaching philosophy – learning through practice and failure

A teaching philosophy centred around students working alongside experts on real-world problems underpins the current and future humanitarian engineering education at RMIT (see also Huff et al., 2016). To inspire students not to be constrained by past engineering thinking, the teaching incorporates lived experiences from industry as well as ongoing action research projects. A broad range of learning activities has been utilised across the courses delivered. These include problem-based learning, scenario-based learning, experiential learning, and experimentation along with more traditional classroom-based activities. All these learning activities revolve around the idea that students need to develop the humanitarian engineering mindset, skillset, and toolset through learning by doing whilst being provided a safe space to fail. This space to fail is very important but something that many students struggle with. Students may believe there is a single correct solution to the particular problem they are trying to address and focus on supplying the perceived ‘correct’ response to a lecturer, rather than actively developing the experimental, exploratory mindset required to grapple with the complexity inherent in the discipline. Put simply, there is a tendency to focus on the answer and not the approach that allows for similar problems to be solved in the future. Engineering students can also jump into finding a solution to a problem that does not exist or is poorly defined. Structured failure can lead to an appreciation of complexity of humanitarian and development contexts and support students to develop their humanitarian mindset.

Teaching and assessment are used in parallel to focus the students’ attention on their approach rather than the solution. For example, students learn ‘observation’ as a discovery technique, and are sent out onto the RMIT campus and asked to put the technique into practice, say to explore the inclusivity of the campus. There is no desired target output, but when back in the classroom students reflect on the process used. This skill is then put into practice as part of experiential learning, for example, whilst on an overseas placement with a partner.

The teaching philosophy targets the switching of the students’ perception of competencies away from skillsets (or toolsets) and towards mindsets. For example, students often perceive risk assessment or the ethics protocol as paperwork to get out of the way as fast as possible. Yet, these competencies are mindsets needed for risk fitness and ethical fitness, to better suit humanitarian styles of working. We want graduates to have the combination of a curious and engaged mind, with the skills and tools for making a difference.

Teaching humanitarian content vs. context

At RMIT, the humanitarian engineering mindsets, skillsets and toolsets are currently taught directly through humanitarian engineering courses as well as indirectly through traditional engineering courses, referred to here as content and context courses respectively:

Humanitarian engineering content courses have learning outcomes related to humanitarian engineering competencies and students are taught tools, techniques, and contexts specific to humanitarian engineering, e.g. strength-based approaches and appropriate technology.

Humanitarian engineering context courses are traditional engineering courses, where a humanitarian scenario, situation, or context is utilised. In these courses, the intent is to teach mainstream engineering competencies using case studies or problem-based learning that relates to humanitarian action or development assistance.

An example of a humanitarian engineering content course is the ‘Humanitarian Experiential Learning Project’ – an elective available to undergraduate students at any point of their degree but recommended for second or third year students. In this course, students are provided with an introduction into humanitarian engineering via video lectures and workshops on topics such as global development challenges, strength-based approaches, cross-cultural communication, human-centred design, social enterprises, market-based solutions, and failed humanitarian engineering projects. Halfway through the intensive course, students join an external partner on a real-world development project. Examples include travelling to Cambodia on a Design Summit with EWB-A or working with Pollinate Group in India through their fellowship program. The primary intention of this course is to introduce students to the humanitarian engineering mindset and skillset, and they might later relate these new skills to their overall engineering learning journey.

Another humanitarian engineering content course is ‘Humanitarian Engineering’, which is available to Masters-level engineering students. The course provides the fundamentals of the humanitarian engineering body of knowledge. Part of the course sees students engage in a scenario where they develop and test simple humanitarian technologies (i.e., for water treatment and cooking) to be used in a refugee camp. Students also engage in playing out a scenario. In the past, this has included developing a plan for conducting field studies exploring opportunities for improving access to rural drinking water, while working closely with a real-world client. Halfway through the scenario, students are informed that their project must urgently pivot in response to a natural disaster. Engineering with practicing humanitarian engineers working for a real partner organisation adds to the realism of the scenario. The use of dynamic scenarios reinforces the value of the application of a humanitarian engineering mindset rather than trying to develop the correct answer.

In addition to the humanitarian content courses, RMIT offers several courses that use a humanitarian engineering context. A good example is the use of a resource constrained setting, namely informal settlements in Honiara, as a Problem-Based Learning site for students taking the course Urban System (a mandatory course for third year environmental engineering students). The context was part of an ongoing research project by RMIT academics which meant students had access to real world data and insights. As a humanitarian engineering context course, the main goal was not to teach humanitarian engineering skills, but for the students to learn about urban systems through a development context. Another example of using a humanitarian context is in the course ‘Introduction to Professional Engineering Practice’. This mandatory first year course, open to all engineering students, uses ‘The EWB Challenge’ as the central Problem-Based Learning scenario. The EWB Challenge is a yearly competition developed by EWB-A to challenge engineering students to develop solutions for underserved communities. The intention of this course is to teach mainstream engineering competencies; it is not focused specifically on the humanitarian engineering body of knowledge. However, there are elements of this course that are highly applicable to working in humanitarian contexts. Jolly, Crosthwaite, & Kavanagh (2010, p. 121) note that “One of the ways in which subjects containing ‘The EWB Challenge’ are different from others, is in their emphasis on teamwork, communication, social and cultural responsibility and liaising with external experts such as EWB staff and industry representatives”. In both examples, challenging humanitarian contexts are used to build core engineering competencies. However, exposure to humanitarian contexts may lead to students seeking out additional learning opportunities for humanitarian engineering. Students doing their capstone and Master research projects at RMIT are also able to choose projects focused on humanitarian engineering and have more control over the level of context vs. content they explore. In most instances the content might be learning and applying a single tool or technique which fits within the limits for supervision time; connecting humanitarian engineering and the primary discipline.

In developing humanitarian engineering curriculum to date, it has been important to be aware that a single humanitarian content elective and a few humanitarian context courses are not sufficient to develop the full mindset and skillset practicing humanitarian engineers need in order to work effectively, safely and ethically. Nonetheless, they do provide an introduction or foundation for further study or professional development. As such, an important part of the humanitarian engineering offering at RMIT has been for students to explore and reflect on the connections between their primary engineering discipline and humanitarian engineering. Through instruction and assessment, students are encouraged to reflect on how their experiences and learning can be applied in their own disciplines. Through such reflection, some students have concluded that they are not yet well suited to the challenges of work in humanitarian contexts, but they can take what they have learnt and apply it in their work as, for instance, an electrical engineer. Either way, throughout these courses, students build professional portfolios as they learn (Eliot & Turns, 2011), meaning they are better prepared to talk about their experiences in work settings.

Keeping in mind the relatively limited exposure RMIT students have to the complex field of humanitarian engineering, the working principle to date has been to nurture engineering graduates in the Pi shaped model of expertise (see also Barnacle et al., 2019). Named after the visually similar Greek letter, a Pi shape engineering graduate has deep disciplinary skills (e.g. chemical or civil engineering) as well as foundational humanitarian engineering skills. These skillsets are connected by a breadth of professional skills. This relationship is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The Pi shape development of complementary engineering skills

With limited contact time, the foundational humanitarian engineering skill is delivered in such a way as to promote further curiosity in the field. This aligns with students moving to the second stage of a four-stage learning journey, developed by the authors, and based on existing humanitarian learning journeys (e.g. Perkins 2019):

Stage 1 – Becoming conscious: Students become aware of the complexity of contemporary humanitarian and development challenges.

Stage 2 – Becoming concerned: Students connect contemporary humanitarian and development challenges to their own discipline and professional and personal journey as they start to explore how they may contribute towards addressing them.

Stage 3 – Becoming competent: Students gain the competencies needed to develop innovative solutions to humanitarian and development challenges and test them in practice.

Stage 4 – Becoming challenged: Students step forward to contribute and try to work on a real-world humanitarian and/or development challenge independently.

The understanding that in limited time it may not be possible to move a student through all four stages of the learning journey is both important from a learning perspective, but also from an ethical and safety perspective. Students need to be aware of their own learning pathway, their own progression, and their own limitations. There is likely a risk of harm if student believes that they, after an introductory course, are adequately prepared to immediately work in humanitarian or developmental contexts.

A Minor in Humanitarian Innovation

RMIT’s humanitarian engineering team continue to develop educational initiatives with the Pi shape in mind (Figure 1). This means humanitarian engineering should not be an entire Bachelor degree program, but should be a complement to one. The introduction of majors and minors at RMIT had presented an opportunity for realising the Pi shape vision and to allow students to continue their humanitarian engineering journey along the four stages described previously. From 2026 or earlier, four humanitarian engineering courses will be offered as part of a new undergraduate ‘Minor in Humanitarian Innovation’. The first half of the Minor will include two fundamentals’ courses:

1. 1. an existing course taught out of the international studies program
   2. a new engineering course based on the learning activities of the existing humanitarian engineering Masters course

The second half of the Minor will include:

1. 3. an existing experiential learning course
   4. a new course on engineering for disaster management, community resilience and climate action.

Course number four has a domestic focus whilst also being more humanitarian action appropriate compared to the developmental assistance weighting in the other three courses. The expectation is that some of the course in the minor may be of interest to non-engineering students in the STEM fields and potentially even development studies and social science students as well.

Reflections, challenges, and lessons learnt

There have been several lessons learnt from developing and delivering education initiatives that cultivate the humanitarian mindset and skillset in engineers. These may be valuable to others interested in the subject or wanting to develop initiatives of their own.

Acknowledging limits: Presently students at either a Bachelors or Masters level have a single humanitarian engineering content course available to them as an elective. This is just enough to provide a basic introduction to humanitarian engineering. Due to the risks involved in working in humanitarian contexts, without appropriate training and limited regulation and oversight, it is important that students are aware they are getting a taste of humanitarian engineering – they are not becoming humanitarian engineers. Students need to find safe ways to continue to build their skills before considering working in humanitarian contexts. We have actively engaged students in reflecting on their own competences and abilities at the end of each course.

The importance of gateway topics: When teaching humanitarian engineering, we experienced the need to provide gateway topics or themes to ease students into the inherent complexity and non-technical nature of development challenges. As an example, whilst slightly outdated as a development philosophy (see Schumacher, 1974), using the concept of indicators of ‘Appropriate Technology’, e.g. affordable, culturally appropriate, encouraging of local participation (Bauer & Brown, 2014; Murphy et al., 2009) helps engineering students transition to consider the importance of the non-technical requirements of a design. Once students are familiar with this way of thinking, we can move further beyond technology by, for example, considering the complex governance model a technology sits within or value of market-based approaches. The concept of appropriate technologies becomes a gateway topic – it provides a gateway between the strongly technical towards the highly social.

The one opportunity: The opportunity to visit or work in humanitarian contexts can be limited and might be best understood as a privilege. The rare opportunity for a student to gain exposure to a development context, say as part of overseas experiential learning trip, sometimes leads to students’ charitable impulses overriding the critical, contextualised thinking and practice they learn in the course, and can impact on their actions with the potential to cause harm. As a broad example, we have witnessed students who wanted to take Australian-purchased supplies to a remote rural school with good intentions, and interrupt classes so they can feel like they have had a tangible benefit to the community, while ignoring much of what was discussed as part of the course.

Authenticity: Both authors are aware of examples where educators have tried to create humanitarian context courses but struggled to make them real or otherwise authentic. Often this is because the humanitarian scenario is forced into a very technical course with specific learning outcomes. For example, the educator may like the idea of teaching wastewater treatment using a humanitarian context to make the application of the learning more appealing. But students are left in a scenario where they are being primarily asked to demonstrate learning of a particular treatment technology. The specific technology may not be suitable for a humanitarian or development context and the case may further work to simplify the complexity of working in such contexts by making it purely a technical exercise. It is potentially dangerous if the humanitarian context becomes inauthentic, but students believe they are solving a real-world humanitarian challenge. It may reinforce the idea that technology is more important than the people using it or the context it is located in.

Some final thoughts

Working effectively, safely, and ethically in complex humanitarian and development contexts requires principles, mindsets, tools, and techniques that typically are missing, undervalued, or under-represented in mainstream engineering education in Australia. Many Australian universities, RMIT University included, have filled this gap through Humanitarian Engineering educational offerings. At RMIT, our Humanitarian Engineering teaching philosophy has been centred around students learning through practice and failure in a safe space – safe for the students themselves and safe for the people they are learning to design for and with. Our students get exposed to humanitarian engineering through humanitarian engineering content and contexts, but they do not become expert humanitarian engineers, at least not during their time at RMIT. They become ‘Pi-shaped engineers’, who have a technical specialty as well as foundational (yet evolving) Humanitarian Engineering skills. They are guided through a four-stage learning journey; becoming conscious, becoming concerned, becoming competent and becoming challenged, at the end recognising their skills as well as their limitations as humanitarian engineering practitioners.

While humanitarian engineering currently forms a supplementary element of engineering education at RMIT and universities across Australia we would like for core elements of humanitarian engineering, such as social impact, human-centred approaches, strength-based approaches, and complexity thinking have greater prominence across mainstream engineering education – to the point where humanitarian engineering education may not even be required. Imagine if all engineers worked effectively, safely, and ethically in all types of complex situations, from humanitarian response to international development, from social housing, to mining, and urban design and planning. We only have to think back to the Juukan Gorge tragedy in Australia in 2020, to clearly see the need for social impact to form a foundational part of the engineering mindset. Sustainability has already, over the past 20-30 years, moved from being a discrete offshoot of engineering to being integrated into engineering education at large. The same could happen for humanitarian engineering, but not through the development of new humanitarian engineering majors. This may actually act as a deflection, with mainstream engineering not having to consider the social impact of engineering projects, as it is ‘over there’ if a student wants to learn more. The teaching philosophy (to practice and fail safely), the concept of a Pi-shaped engineer, the concept of humanitarian contexts vs. content, as well as the four-stage learning journey, all outlined in this chapter may offer pathways for ensuring all engineers have the mindset and skills to work effectively, safely, and ethically.

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